The Transformative Power of Uncertainty
Dec 01, 2023 12:01PM ● By Deb Beroset
You know those times when one thing in your life has ended—or you sense something needs to end to make room for something else—but the next thing hasn’t shown up and fallen into place just yet?
It’s Not You, It’s Your Brain
Having worked with hundreds of women dealing with transitions in life—some self-created, some unexpected and unplanned—one of the most freeing things is when they get that our brains are not designed for happiness, but safety. Our brains are designed to turn any uncertainty into fear. When you think about it, any time you’re creating, you are dealing with uncertainty.
Fear as a Portal
If you were to take the following sentence to heart, it might just change your life: The fear between me and the life waiting for me isn’t in the way—it is the way.
It's Time For Moxie LLC
We usually know, deep down, when there’s a new shift wanting to happen in our lives, and when we sense that, it often doesn’t feel like a rainbows-and-unicorns moment.
It can come in the form of a vague restlessness. Or a longing you can’t quite name. A desire that keeps tugging on your sleeve and you pretend not to notice, but you know it’s there and you feel funky about brushing it off time after time.
Then there are times when the awareness of some fundamental change wanting and needing to happen in your life feels so scary that you’d rather crawl into bed and hide under the covers than deal with it. When we are truly on the cusp of awakening consciousness on a new level, there’s a part of us that just wants to hit the snooze button on life and go back to sleep.
Uncertainty is actually a very powerful place to be, even though it can feel scary and daunting when you’re in it. It means you’re experiencing a mismatch between life inside you, and life outside you—and your growth is such that the misalignment is becoming less and less tolerable.
Your soul is sending an urgent memo: It’s now time to shed some of what you’ve outgrown and create something new in your life that feels aligned with who you truly are at this juncture in life. This is good news. This is what we’re here for, this evolving, just as the caterpillar is here to be an awesome caterpillar and then, when the time is right, transform into a butterfly.
Instead of dreading the groundless, in-between, liminal places, try thinking of them as air to a bird or the sea between life’s continents—not something to be dreaded, but the very thing that will carry you to new places in ways you can’t now fully imagine.
It’s Not You, It’s Your Brain
Having worked with hundreds of women dealing with transitions in life—some self-created, some unexpected and unplanned—one of the most freeing things is when they get that our brains are not designed for happiness, but safety. Our brains are designed to turn any uncertainty into fear. When you think about it, any time you’re creating, you are dealing with uncertainty.
On top of that hardwired alarm system, when the data from outside our brain doesn’t match what’s inside (our thoughts, feelings and memories, for instance), the brain will always default to the inside story. Your brain does not care about your happiness or what’s accurate and true; it is all about ensuring survival. It just wants you to keep breathing.
Let’s say you’ve got this business you want to start, or a book you want to write, or a cause you want to support or you want love in your life—but it involves uncertainty, so you automatically get scared. Then your brain totally ignores any evidence that you could have or do that thing, and it defaults to habitual internal running commentary and moods that suck the life out of your desire and keep you stuck.
What your brain does not give much or any airtime to, however, is another kind of danger—the very real costs of playing it safe in life. It’s worth taking some time to also look at this: What’s the predictable future if you stay small and “safe” and don’t move in the direction of what makes you come alive?
When you allow fear to run the show—out of fear of failure, for example—you are already failing in that moment that you shrink back or play small. You are failing to live the life you know you really want.
Fear as a Portal
If you were to take the following sentence to heart, it might just change your life: The fear between me and the life waiting for me isn’t in the way—it is the way.
Did you know that a butterfly’s struggle to emerge from its chrysalis is the very thing that allows its wings to grow strong enough to support flight? Nature designed the butterfly to push through to develop those flight muscles.
When preparing for childbirth, we learn that yes, there will be fear and pain and struggle—and that we are built to push through discomfort and fear to cause new life. It’s a natural process. We’re designed for this.
And so it is with birthing anything in life, whether it’s a project that you’re afraid you’re not up to, or letting go of a familiar career to go for something that calls to you, or you simply sense there’s more YOU wanting to be unleashed, and you’re not sure what that looks like.
Think of uncertainty and fear as an invitation from the universe. You’ve been presented with an opportunity to either expand or contract; the choice is yours. Take a tentative first step out of the familiar. Start exploring. Allow yourself to not know it all in advance.
Courage is something you can cultivate and practice, and the better you get at moving out of the familiar and navigating uncertainty, the more powerful you become as someone who dares to create a reality that fills her with joy.
Deb Beroset is coming to Tucson with SoulFire, an unforgettable retreat, and trio of follow-up workshops designed to ignite your power to create the life you want. Through direct experience in this magical mystery tour, you’ll come face to face with your own magic—your special vibe, your unique voice, your purpose and your way forward. To learn more and register, visit ItsTimeForMoxie.com/soulfire. See ad, page 17.
It's Time For Moxie LLC
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